Is the United States ready for a Disaster?

On Friday, Aug 26 I said the following:


On Saturday, I spent considerable time watching WWL, and observed the early stage of the evacuation. From the beginning, it was made abundantly clear that evacuation was not just a suggestion but a damned necessity. Nevertheless, the WWL crew interviewd scores of people who scoffed at the severity of the storm, evinced an unwillingness to leave their stuff behind, and various other ridiculous reasons/motivations for not heeding the warning.

On Sunday morning, I watched as contraflow was activated and torrents of people poured out of the city. I watched as the mayor ordered mandatory evacuation of the city, and begged everyone who absolutely could not leave to board the free RTA busses and travel to their local evacuation centers. It was once again emphasized that the storm was going to be severe, and that "riding it out" was not an option. Once again, the peanut gallery chimed in with incredulity and proudly declared that they weren't going anywhere. When contraflow ended, the interstate was amazingly empty. Very few people were leaving the city at that point, even though there was still roughly 6 hours of travel time in which they could have reached safety. At the very least, they could have gone to an evacuation center.

Those who willingly chose to remain behind should not be absolved of their complicity in this debacle. There are many innocent people trapped in the city because of health problems or lack of means to evacuate, and they have my sympathy. However, those who consciously disregarded warnings and willingly remained behind have contributed to an epic disaster and made things infinitely worse.

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How do you seperate the ones who willingly didn't leave from those who could not leave, had no place to go or resources to go. I can't do it. I don't know what the circumstances are for those people and their reasons they did not leave. It is troubling to think that the majority of people there were too poor to leave as unemployment is very high...it may even be untrue. But whatever the circumstances I think it is our duty to assist them as quickly as possible without judgement. And when people say it is their own fault...what does that mean? Does that mean that we do not have to help them, that they are on their own and they got their just desserts? Or is it that they deserve to be in this predictment?

After the people are evacuated and safe I feel we can then talk about why the people were still there and what can be done better for the future.

If they rebuild New Orleans...which after listening to Hasert today, I am unsure what is going to happen with that, maybe they will come up with a working evacuation plan with enough support to make sure that citizens are evacuated in time like this.

Are we ready for a Disaster? It doesn't look like it to me. I think the guy from FEMA needs to go and Chertoff...they didn't even know that there were 5000 people at the convention center as was heard on NPR. Maybe they should watch CNN or Fox news and get the information from people on the ground.

I know that this is an overwhelming disaster and I am even willing to give the authorities(except for That FEMA guy and Chertoff) the benefit of the doubt, the benefit of being human and dealing with the aftermath, but I am not willing to blame the victims because even if some of them made the wrong choice, they don't deserve the suffering they are going through. Nobody does.

Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the whole country to find solutions and stradegies that would facililtate mass evacuations when needed. There needs to be a plan for every town and city so people are informed and know where to go for saftey.

Um. 1. It's Picabo, not Picado.
2. If you read what I wrote, and I still stand by it.. Friday is day 4 post-strike day. So, stick that in your craw and chew on it as you learn to count and read again.
3. You've been following it on the news? Hooray for you. Watch more closely and with an open mind please. As with all disasters and nearly all media reporting, it might be helpful for you to seek multiple sources. One of mine has been my own little feet on the ground at a refugee center today and yesterday. At worst I have some (notice I said some) individual first hand reports from those I helped that provided a small snippet of what happened and continues to happen. In addition, I have also seen the news reports available to all with an Internet connection. Guess what... I think your statements indicate you either don't have as much info as other people or aren't processing it in an unemotional and objective fashion.

Your statements indicate that you are falling prey to the great emotionalism that bad reporting shows or draws on. Give me cold, hard facts any day...

It's bad. It's not as bad as it could be but worse than it "should be" in the perfect world of the idealist and the dreamer. In my world of realism, people die, plans aren't perfect, and even "near perfect" plans can get implemented incompletely, incorrectly and in haphazard manners by people with good intentions as well as those who are less than perfectly competent. That's what's happening.

So, shoot the messenger because you don't like the message - which, in case you missed it, was give it a break.



Ardith.... I stand by my opinion of your ranting also. Please take your histrionic sarcasm and put it in a sandbag we can drop into the 17th Street Canal breach will you? At this point, it couldn't hurt and your image as a @&@&#$@(& might improve. I doubt both results will occur, but I can hope.

Nope. apparently you can't --- or refuse to.

See? Proved my point. They DIDN'T KNOW, they projected.

Not exactly, In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The concept of "Disaster Preparedness" is just that - being PREPARED for a disaster. Meaning that they calculate the risks and address the high probability ones. Basically the politicians just pissed around until they flooded the entire city.


Check the timeline. Check the history of all hurricanes. This one was modelled to remain a Cat 1 or fizzle after it passed over Florida. It didn't... it gained strength despite the models. DOH.

Perhaps you should check the time line because on Saturday August 28th CBS reported that Katrina was gaining stregnth and could be a Category 4 or 5. On Sunday, " Hurricane Katrina eyewall images taken on Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005, during a NOAA P-3 hurricane hunter flight at the time show the storm was a Category Five hurricane by then. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2496.htm That was a two days before it crashed into the coast. A lot can be done in two days.

Well, gee. Floridians must just be smarter than the poor dumb Cajuns.

I didn't say that - I said unprepared at a government level. If you feel you must take that personally as some sort of contest between people in Florida and people in LA, that's your problem not mine. The bottom line is that they should have had supplies and personnel ready to go in the event of a predicted emergency.

Gee. That person's experience is representative of ALL official actions by Louisiana government.. right?

No - they aren't, then again, I guess all the reports in the media are the experience of one person too right?





"For thousands upon thousands of people, time was running out. A Herald reporter saw three bodies in and around the Superdome. Criticism of the federal relief effort rose to a fevered pitch, and not just in New Orleans.

"There's no FEMA, no Red Cross, no help," said James Gibson, 45, of tiny Lakeshore, Miss." - taken from an AP interview with someone in the shelter.

Oh yeah, those people being interviewed as they leave the Superdome are as happy as clams and the place is all clean and neat and nobody died because there was no back up generator to provide some air circulation or because they did not have the diabetic or other medication they needed. If the city planners are not smart enough to figure out that there are people who in the wake of a disaster will forget to bring, not have time to bring or just not have supplies of their own, then it proves my point. They were woefully unprepared.

Mine is smarter and more pwerful than yours, eh? Go you. What BS!

Gee, let's see the extent of the ignorance of the situation you have exhibited here. The National Guard WAS mobilized -- as a matter of fact, one of the locations wound up being flooded to a depth of 12 feet of water. Did you know that? No, didn't think you did. Navy hospital ships.. gee. Who controls that? The Feds... and thus, Lousiana's government officials have no control over that. There is a military mission those ships are tasked against... have you forgotten that? Guess what, one hospital ship was put on departure alert within 24 hours -- you didn't know that did you? No.. didn't think so. My God, your suppositions and assumptions are legion.

A limited number of National Guard were sent into the city on Tuesday. The majority arrived today, Thursday, two days later.

"Thursday, September 1, 2005 Updated at 8:32 AM EDT
Associated Press

New Orleans — National Guard troops in armoured vehicles poured into New Orleans Thursday to curb the growing lawlessness as Mississippi's governor vowed to deal with looters in the neighbouring state as "ruthlessly as we can get our hands on them."

About 10,000 National Guard troops from around the country were ordered to shore up security, rescue and relief operations along the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

Even your own city officials think that it has been a cluster fuck:

"The storm's fearsome intensity and ultimate destination were known days in advance, so why were so many National Guard troops still sidelined three days after catastrophe struck? Why were so many areas still unvisited, unaided, unsafe? Why were so many people dying of dehydration, their bodies sprawled in the streets of American cities?

"This is a national disgrace . . .," said Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations. "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."



Your sarcasm and venom are noted but ignored, it dosn't change anything. The simple fact of the matter is that the government, city, state and federal really fucked up and were in fact quite unprepared.

...

Just the kind of image I wwould expect from a man of your caliber. Why don't you step up on a stool, so that you can join in on the big-person's discussion, lil Chance.

(Is that what you mean by pretention? Or should I have tossed in something about qualifications? Let me know if it worked for you. )

Gimme a fucking break on this shit. Led Zeppelin fucking knew the levee would break.
If you can't see that the "looters" are the New Orleans equilvalent of Robin Hood then I don't know how to talk to you.

The success of FEMA on 9-11 can be attributed to the seriousness of the Clinton administration's build up of FEMA after Bush #1's disaster in Florida during Hurricane Andrew. Bush #2 gutted FEMA after 9-11 and put an incompetent cronie in charge AND castrated it's ability to work by folding it into his bloated ineffectual Homeland Security department. Add on to all this, that Bush cut the funding on maintaining the levees by 40% in order to give the wealthy their "much needed" tax cuts, and you begin to see what is happening.

The poor in this country are being intentionally left to die a social darwinist wetdream.
I am so sickened by what is happening to the impoverished people of the Delta area.

If you don't get what I am saying, I will spell it out for you.

BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Let's hope we all learn something from what has happened.

Newsview: Politicians Failed Storm Victims

Sep 1, 6:06 PM (ET)

By RON FOURNIER


WASHINGTON (AP) - At every turn, political leaders failed Katrina's victims. They didn't strengthen the levees. They ceded the streets to marauding looters. They left dead bodies to rot or bloat. Thousands suffered or died for lack of water, food and hope. Who's at fault?

There's plenty of blame to go around - the White House, Congress, federal agencies, local governments, police and even residents of the Gulf Coast who refused orders to evacuate. But all the finger-pointing misses the point: Politicians and the people they lead too often ignore danger signs until a crisis hits.

It wasn't a secret that levees built to keep New Orleans from flooding could not withstand a major hurricane, but government leaders never found the money to fully shore up the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers.

Both the Bush and Clinton administrations proposed budgets that low-balled the needs. Local politicians grabbed whatever money they could and declared victory. And the public didn't exactly demand tax increases to pay for flood-control and hurricane-protection projects.

Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.

Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

How could Washington spend $231 million on a bridge to nowhere - and not find $42 million for hurricane and flood projects in New Orleans? It's a matter of power and politics.

Alaska is represented by Republican Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a senior member of the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee. Louisiana's delegation holds far less sway.

Once the hurricane hit, relief trickled into the Gulf Coast. Even Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, whose agency is in charge of disaster response, pronounced the initial results unacceptable.

The hurricane was the first major test of FEMA since it became part of the Homeland Security Department, a massive new bureaucracy that many feared would make the well-respected FEMA another sluggish federal agency.

Looting soon broke out as local police stood by. Some police didn't want to stop people from getting badly needed food and water. Others seemed to be overwhelmed. Thousands of National Guard troops were ordered to the Gulf Coast, but their ranks have been drastically thinned by the war in Iraq.

On top of all this, Katrina is one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the United States. The best leaders running the most efficient agencies would have been sharply challenged.

"Look at all they've had to deal with," former President Clinton told CNN shortly after joining former President Bush on a fundraising campaign for hurricane relief. "I'm telling you, nobody every thought it would happen like this."

That's not true. Experts had predicted for years that a major hurricane would eventually hit New Orleans, swamping the levees and filling the bowl-shaped city with polluted water. The politicians are doing what they do in time of crisis - shifting the blame.

"The truth will speak for itself," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said of potential lapses by government. Later, her office blamed the White House for budget cuts.

If it's not the Republicans' fault, perhaps some in Washington would like to blame New Orleans itself. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., questioned whether a city that lies below sea level should be rebuilt. "That doesn't make sense to me," he said.

But for anybody living - or dying - in the devastated region, there are far too many villains to name.

"We're out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center.

Robin Lovin, ethics professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said it's too convenient to blame one branch of government when they are all, at some level, failing people. From Watergate to Clinton's impeachment, governmental institutions have disappointed the public.

"Bush, Congress, the mayor - each of them are symptoms of a bigger problem, that we don't have accountability for disasters or challenges of this scale," Lovin said. "That's all the public wants in trying times - accountability."

Thus, Americans are doing what people do when government lets them down - they're turning to each other. Donations are pouring into charities. Internet sites are being used to find relatives. Residents of far-off states are opening their homes to victims.

The community spirit is reminiscent of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. So is the second-guessing. It will happen again after the next crisis. You've heard the warnings: a cataclysmic California earthquake, another terrorist strike, a flu pandemic, a nuclear plant meltdown, a tsunami, the failure to address mounting U.S. debt - and on and on.

Will the public and its leaders be better prepared next time?

---

EDITOR'S NOTE - Ron Fournier has covered politics for The Associated Press since 1993.

It had to happen.

The political ideologues had to turn this into diatribes without rational consideration.

Tell you what. You guys and gals can go argue with yourselves. You enjoy it so much.

You live behind and view the world behind a set of badly ground optics - things that show only what you want to see, not what is.

So. Knowing that you write to "prove your point" and change the world rather than to discuss things in a constructive or objective manner as a means to try to discover "truth", I leave you to eat your young and live in the crap and invective you spew. I hope you enjoy the tastes of your own bile.

Mmmm... bile...

Why did SELA not receive the money which was necessary to lessen the severity of a hurricane strike on the city?

When you're insulting someone's caliber by making fun of a word printed in gigantic, bold letters- spell it correctly. Fnord.

Damn. I was owned. My lackluster comedic attempt was foiled by an asinine spelling mistake. Can I convince you that I was just thinking of those poor people, and how some tents might help?

Only if you pitch them.

Seems to me the only people providing facts to bolster their arguements are the ones you claim to be "living in crap". Rather than dwell in your own kneejerk jingoism, and childish faith that this government has your own best interests in mind --WHY DON'T YOU LOOK AT THE FACTS AND WAKE THE FUCK UP?